Woman with one leg sexually harassed by online trolls

A Melbourne woman has been left shocked after she received an onslaught of unsolicited sexual offers, threats and harassment online after making a light-hearted joke about her disability on Twitter.

Since the age of six, Cherie Louise – now 27 – has lived with only one leg, having her right leg amputated due to osteosarcoma – a cancer which attacks immature bones.

Upon seeing a thread on Twitter which asked, "your age and something you can't do," Cherie responded with: "27, can't cross my legs."

After being quizzed why, Cherie posted a full bodied, fully clothed, mirror selfie, which was then shared by UK man with a large following, evidently leading to a barrage of filthy comments from all around the world.

"From the start it was as mix of half people laughing at my joke, and then half people saying whether or not they'd have sex with me," Cherie, who is in a relationship, told 9Honey.

"All kinds of crude - what kind of sex positions could she get into and then about twenty guys making the same joke, you know, 'I'll give you my third leg'."

But it was a man from France who wrote one of the most hideous comments of all: "If you want to rape her 2x less effort to do, I do not think that with one leg she can do much".

(Twitter)

"I had to translate it because it was in French," Cherie explained, adding ironically that French it is "the language of love".

The revolting comments came from all around the work: UK, America, France and here in Australia, and to Cherie's disbelief mostly from profiles with clear photos – sometimes in school uniforms – with the men tagging their friends. Cherie said: "It's really easy to figure out where these guys are from."

She explained that as her post gained more traffic, the social media platform was proactive in reaching out to her and offered to filter some responses, an offer she declined as she was already receiving threats and couldn't bring herself to ignore any of them without personally hitting back and reporting them.

"It just turned into hundreds of thinking with their d---s," Cherie said.

"I don't know how you can go from having a harmless joke to being like, 'I need to tell this girl I want to have sex with her' instead of just writing 'lol'."

Cherie says that since she was old enough to be exposed to it, she has been met with these sort of comments so while she isn't upset about it, she still finds it disappointing.

"It's just unnecessary. I don't need your validation or men telling me they want to have sex with me," Cherie said.

"It's not a compliment to say 'I'd still have sex with you' or 'you're still beautiful' - it's kind of saying, even though there is something wrong with you, I will still give you this and that.